A Single Mom's Journey to Freedom

Tag Archives: school

Hello again folks. Well, here goes my latest update: “30 Days of Yoga” is over. Not because it was too hard or I was bored or anything but because I’ve started school again and so have my children so I haven’t gotten the hang of our adjusted schedules as of yet. I may or may not take it back up and/or notify the community of it (just saying).

Anywho, I wanted to share the impact that a particular class I’m taking has had on me just in this first week. The class is Interpersonal Relationships. The official course description goes like this: This course provides a study of personal growth and development through student discussion of interpersonal relationships and utilization of vital life skills such as dynamic, pro-active communication skills (verbal and non-verbal); active listening and response skills; and conflict resolution techniques. This course explores how to manage feelings; interpret human behavior, feelings, and stress; and overcome barriers to communication.

So this class is basically “Life 101.”

I had this professor for my Literature class and I loved it/him! So he mentioned that he had this Interpersonal Relationships course and I was hooked. I am always trying to find ways to improve myself and I thought that this would be a great addition. There are lots of people who wouldn’t bother taking this class because it’s not a requirement but just from what I’ve learned so far, I think it should be. Our first night we watched a video by Dr. Leo Buscaglia. If you haven’t watched or read anything by him you should check out YouTube. I think this man was the epitome of an angel and that he must have blessed many people with his messages on love. You can truly see how he loved people (he had a nickname of Dr. Love).

I feel that our society doesn’t take enough time to emphasize the importance of educating ourselves on life situations and what it means to be human. I think that the focus has shifted so intensely to traditional education such as reading, writing and math that this world has simply become too busy to worry about things like feelings, emotions and how we treat one another. We’ve separated ourselves and made our feelings seem unimportant. We’ve become so engrossed with nourishing our intellect that we’ve forgotten the importance of nurturing our souls. We don’t share our pain or struggle with others because we don’t want people to think that we’re too emotionally “high maintenance.” We only share our highs and mask our lows. Then we ostracize anyone who has these lows and tell them to get over it and pick themselves up instead of telling them how we have also hurt and how we can relate. (Sadly, I have been guilty of this as well.)

We’ve created this fake society of non-feeling people. Ones who don’t have time to listen to beautiful music, watch a play or just admire works of art. Humanities, music and art courses/classes are the first to go whenever there are school budget cuts. Before I even started this course I’ve been working on getting to know me as a person. For so many years I only wanted to focus on pleasing my partners and bending to their will in order to keep them happy. I’m still a work in progress but I feel much better about myself now and know that I don’t have to bend over backwards for anyone’s attention. I want to learn to love people without having my life depend on whether or not they love me back. I’ve been reading tons of books, watching lots of movies, and am trying everything I can to fill myself with all the knowledge I desire not only the knowledge required by our institutions. I think overall taking a course like this will help me become a better person which is my ultimate goal.

Hopefully, I can continue to share more of what I learn in this course and life in general. Thanks for reading.